Gretchen Jones, Project Runway, Fall/Winter 2012, New York Fashion Week, New York Green Fashion Week, made in the U.S.A., eco-fashion, sustainable fashion, green fashion, ethical fashion, sustainable style, New York, New York City

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

As in previous seasons, Jones based her collection on a music album and a book (actually a book and a poem): Desertshore by Nico, Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, and “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe. “My father passed away after the presentation for spring,” Jones tells Ecouterre. “So the collection has been all about light and dark, what is real, where the line between life and death starts.”

Jones’s veda therapist has a vision of the designer shedding her skin like a snake.

Jones owes her hand-painted crocodile print, in part, to her “veda hippie therapist,” who had a vision of the designer shedding her skin like a snake. It’s the kind of mystical symbolism Jones gravitates unapologetically—and unironically—towards.

Although she began her career at the helm of MothLove, a label that billed itself as sustainable, Jones considers herself “fashion first.” “I feel that when it comes to sustainability you have to pick your poison,” she says. “Right now it’s more important for me to focus on creating work in my economy, supporting that, and then advancing as I grow.”

Not that she’s completely divorcing herself from the movement, of course. Her sweaters are knit in Los Angeles, but everything else hails locally from New York City’s Garment District. Jones traffics in magical realism, after all, and this is her place of power.